The invention relates to a hinge for hanging a door on the carcase of a piece of furniture, with a door-related hinge part which can be fastened to the door and a carcase-related hinge part. The carcase-related hinge part can be placed removably on a mounting plate affixed to the wall of the carcase, is coupled to the door-related part by a linking mechanism, and is configured as a supporting arm with an inverted U-shaped cross section straddling the mounting plate. The mounting plate is composed of two separable members which can be adjusted relative to one another; the bottom member nearer the cabinet wall can be affixed to the cabinet wall, and the upper part more remote from the cabinet wall is joined releasably to the supporting arm by a catch mechanism. The catch mechanism has, in the front end area of the upper mounting plate member nearer the door leaf, projections extending from its confronting lateral surfaces; these projections are associated with slots opening in the bottom margin of the lateral flanges of the supporting arm and permitting the introduction of the projections, while at the inner end of the supporting arm remote from the door leaf at least one resilient tongue with a detent section is formed, which in the proper connecting position is engaged in a catch recess at the inner end of the upper mounting plate member.
In the hinges constructed in this manner (DE-OS 31 19 571; FIGS. 3 to 7) it is possible to release successively from the wall the supporting arms of the hinge whose other part is mounted on a door or to fasten them thereon, without the need for difficult manipulations, by releasing the catch mechanism and raising the hinge supporting arm. This is advantageous especially in the case of tall cabinets on which the doors are mounted with more than two hinges, because the doors can then be dismounted and reinstalled even by unassisted persons.
The catch mechanism of the known hinge is formed by a bent end section of the cabinet-interior web of the [channel-shaped] supporting arm which can be snapped over a transverse edge formed on the upper mounting plate member. This catch connection alone, however, is not sufficiently secure against unsnapping to hold the supporting arm by itself, i.e., without additional securing. Consequently, an additional mounting screw which can be driven into a tap in the upper mounting plate member is provided, whose threaded shank passes through a slot in the free transverse edge of the bent end section of the web, and whose head, when tightened down, holds the bent end section of the web on the upper mounting plate member. Therefore, before the supporting arm is unsnapped, first the mounting screw has to be backed out of the tap in the upper mounting plate member sufficiently to permit the supporting arm to be released. This loosening of the mounting screw upon disassembly and turning it back in after assembly is obviously time-consuming and laborious and thus is an obstacle to the quick and simple mounting of the supporting arm on the mounting plate and its removal therefrom. Therefore methods have already been developed for a simpler and quicker mounting and dismounting of hinges at their cabinet-related end, in which the catch mechanism is provided not between the supporting arm and the mounting plate but between the upper and lower mounting plate members, so that a supporting arm once fastened in the conventional manner on the mounting plate can be dismounted by unsnapping the upper mounting plate member, which remains on the supporting arm, from the lower mounting plate member, and by snapping the upper mounting plate member back onto the bottom mounting plate member. The snap mechanism of a known (DE-OS 35 25 279) mounting plate that is constructed in this manner is formed by a slide which is guided in the bottom mounting plate member and biased to the catching position by a spring, and which has a catch projection having a ramp surface. The catch surface in the upper mounting plate, which has a ramp surface of complementary inclination, is held resiliently in engagement in the upper mounting plate member. The slide is operated by means of a handle disposed on the rearward prolongation of the slide pointing into the cabinet interior. The catch mechanism has proven practical, yet it is of a relatively complex construction and is accordingly expensive. The handle provided on the carcase-interior end of the mounting plate is operated by exerting an unlocking movement on the handle outwardly from the case interior. Now, it is not entirely impossible that, in the case of a very fully packed cabinet, the handle may be accidently shifted in the unlocking direction when the door is closed, if, for example, it comes in contact with a protruding coat hanger or other projecting object, before the door is entirely closed. In the worst case this might then result in an unsnapping of the upper mounting plate member from the bottom mounting plate member and thus of the hinge held on this mounting plate, which in the case of doors hung with only two hinges on the cabinet makes it not unlikely that they might fall off.
It is the purpose of the invention to create an effective catch mechanism between the hinge's supporting arm and the upper mounting plate member of the bipartite mounting plate, which will substantially improve the simplicity of the catch mechanisms of hinges provided on the carcase side and at the same time securing it against unintentional release.